The weird science of Light

In the quantum optical laboratories at the Niels Bohr Institute, researchers have conducted experiments that show that light breaks with the classical physical principles. The studies show that light can have both an electrical and a magnetic field, but not at the same time. That is to say, light has quantum mechanical properties.

Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.

Pastor Spomer

Quantum physics is underaprieciated in theology and philosophy circles. People still speak as though we were in a Newtonian world.

Pastor Spomer

Quantum physics is underaprieciated in theology and philosophy circles. People still speak as though we were in a Newtonian world.

mikeb

I find it fascinating that they keep finding infinitely smaller particles. The deeper we look the more we find.

mikeb

I find it fascinating that they keep finding infinitely smaller particles. The deeper we look the more we find.

http://schn00dles.wordpress.com/ Carl Nelson

Ideas certainly have these aspects.

http://schn00dles.wordpress.com/ Carl Nelson

Ideas certainly have these aspects.

http://www.toddstadler.com/ tODD

I don’t have a subscription to JPL, so I can’t read the actual source article (not that I’m sure I’d understand it), but I can’t figure out what the news is here. Surely it’s not news that “light has quantum mechanical properties” — we’ve known that for, what, 50 years? What am I missing here?

http://www.toddstadler.com/ tODD

I don’t have a subscription to JPL, so I can’t read the actual source article (not that I’m sure I’d understand it), but I can’t figure out what the news is here. Surely it’s not news that “light has quantum mechanical properties” — we’ve known that for, what, 50 years? What am I missing here?

Pastor Spomer

Please excuses my typos. I’m using my Father’s day gift, iPad. Anybody know how these things work? I grew up on windows.

Pastor Spomer

Please excuses my typos. I’m using my Father’s day gift, iPad. Anybody know how these things work? I grew up on windows.

fws

pastor spomer @ 5

you and me both. heeeeelppp.

fws

pastor spomer @ 5

you and me both. heeeeelppp.

http://facebook.com/mesamike Mike Westfall

I have access to the article t work, but I think they linked the wrong one. I was wondering the same thing, Todd.

http://facebook.com/mesamike Mike Westfall

I have access to the article t work, but I think they linked the wrong one. I was wondering the same thing, Todd.

Mike (@11), best I could tell, they had discovered a method by which the (long-known) quantum properties of light could be observed at a non-quantum level. Something like that. And the quantum property in question was the inability to know both position and momentum at the same time (as told us by the oft-misunderstood — including by me — Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

Let me try again. Since I was in high school 20 years ago (and likely well before that), quantum physics has said that you can’t know both the position and momentum of something simultaneously. That’s Heisenberg. And quantum physics has been a very useful model in understanding and predicting how things work. But (here I’m speculating a bit), it would seem that never before had this particular theory from quantum had been observed at the “classical” level.

http://www.toddstadler.com/ tODD

Mike (@11), best I could tell, they had discovered a method by which the (long-known) quantum properties of light could be observed at a non-quantum level. Something like that. And the quantum property in question was the inability to know both position and momentum at the same time (as told us by the oft-misunderstood — including by me — Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

Let me try again. Since I was in high school 20 years ago (and likely well before that), quantum physics has said that you can’t know both the position and momentum of something simultaneously. That’s Heisenberg. And quantum physics has been a very useful model in understanding and predicting how things work. But (here I’m speculating a bit), it would seem that never before had this particular theory from quantum had been observed at the “classical” level.